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01:48 - 04.02.08
Water
One of Canada's Prime Ministers, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, once declared that the government of Canada had no place in the bedrooms of consenting adults. Amen and amen. Thank god I can be celibate, if I want. Too bad his thoughts weren't legislated, so that interfering friends, relatives and movie/television directors had to keep their noses out of other peoples' private lives too. I am so sick of that and conspicuous consumption being the theme of most of the dreck produced for public viewing that I rarely turn my television on nor do I go to movies. You might have noticed most of what I mention watching is old musicals and childrens' material.

My oldest son brought that home to me again last night when he called to check in. He asked if I actually watched anything at all, while trying to make conversation. No, just the news really. Maybe "Little Mosque on the Prairies" when the mood hits. I have to say I feel as much a stranger in what has become the culture of our communities that I can identify quite easily with those characters' confusion about things "western". It may be 21st century, but it isn't western in any sense of the word. It was part of the reason I hesitated with respect to watching the films he had left for me last weekend.

Director Deepa Mehta is a Canadian of East Indian descent. I knew the films dealt with issues pertinent to her ancestors' traditions and experiences; although not specific to the Bollywood genre that I enjoy because they so closely resemble old North American musicals. She wanted to challenge the traditional expectations/perceptions of specific realtionships in their culture. The titles of those movies were "Fire", "Earth", and "Water". I watched the first two today. "Fire" just irritated me, because of the issues I've raised at the beginning of this post to you. I realize that as a director, she needed to draw her target audience out of deeply entrenched beliefs and stereotypes held by all segments of the East Indian community so that they could, hopefully as a unit, see what she was trying to show them with their blinders off - all cultures have them of course. There probably weren't a lot of other topics that were so far outside of almost all her community's experience that they would all be challenged to suspend those unthinking perceptions for the length of that movie. However I wasn't prepared or interested in looking at any form of sexuality for whatever purpose, although I did admire the subtlety of the message that the characters of the story had to convey. That in a closed social order, with very rigid roles, neither men nor women had many options when those roles were destroying them as individuals. How the characters adapted and survived is both sad and an accurate portrayal of the universal consequences when a person belonging to any social structure strays "too far" from the "normal" as dictated by the dominant mores of the community. The two anchors of the story - the male servant and the grandmother whose stroke forces her to find ways to communicate in unorthodox ways - were very well played by the performers. A Greek chorus in East Indian clothees and the only real source of comic relief in the movie.

The next movie "Earth" is set in the northern part of the Indian Empire just as partition was occurring in 1947. I'm still working through the profound emotional response it evoked in me. It wasn't as though I didn't know what would happen during the movie as events played out. Between my volunteer time with Amnesty International and the Red Cross Survivors of Torture program I've heard the story and the witnessed the ensuing consequences of those days ad infinitum. That said my reaction was so powerful that I actually experienced an increasing amount of both physical and emotional/psychological pain as the story unfolded. I can't understand it, but it took sessions of pacing, belly dancing, a hot footbath, and an extended yoga workout, as well as time on a couple of mind-numbing computer games I bookmark just for stress relief, before I could even sit down or feel calm again. I think I'll need to sleep on it before I discuss it further with you. The only thing that I have come up with is that the twin themes of trust and betrayal are at the core of the story as they pertain to any relationship one could name - individual or collective. I put off watching "Water" until tomorrow since it deals with another issue too close for personal comfort - women who find themselves unexpectedly trying to survive in the world on their own. I suspect the themes of exclusion and exploitation are part of the story and I wasn't ready to deal with anything else that would trigger strong emotional reactions from my own past. Nuh uh.

Fortunately my one sister called not long after to ask about some photos she was scanning for me. They are ones she took of my sons over the years. In an oblique way I was able to discuss some of those issues of betrayal as they relate to our family dynamics as we chatted about the past. Still a continuation of the discussions that began a couple of days ago. An eclipse of the sun in my astrological sign on Wednesday signifies both endings and beginnings. Maybe if I do my emotional homework well enough I can shed a lot of that old baggage and move on. Worth a shot, eh? Good night dear diary.

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